Anyway, I frankly don't give a damn whether Adria is a good person or not. People are criticizing her for a specific set of actions that don't seem to be in line with what actually happened. It exposes a lot of sloppy, biased thinking that is the real problem here. :(

I think the majority of criticism is that she escalated things so rapidly to publicly shaming people who didn't deserve it costing a man his job over a silly dick joke that that majority of women wouldn't have batted an eye over.

If she didn't publicly identify him, no one would have cared.
If she had simply notified the conference staff, no one would have cared.
She took it to extremes, and now the internet is responding in kind.

Adria did NOT fire this man. As far as I can tell, she never ran a campaign to get him fired. What she did was to report what occurred, including the names of those involved.

If your local newspaper ran an article exposing a scandal, and the participants in the scandal got in trouble because it came to light, would you blame the newspaper?

If this was a minor offense that no one should have cared about, then reporting it is fine -- there's no harm done. If this was a major issue that justifies strong reactions, then reporting it is fine -- justice is served. I fear that the real position is "My employer thinks this is a major issue worth firing over, but I want to keep doing it anyway so you have an obligation to keep this under wraps for me." and I do not think that is a defensible position to take.

What she did was to make a mountain out of a molehill by playing Internet vigilante. I could have understood her attitude if she had found herself to be the object of sex(ist) jokes, but taking offense because two guys, who apparently are paying no attention to her, are sharing a not-so-funny vaguely sexual joke, does not warrant the Internet equivalent of burning them at the stake.

Comparing her to a reporter is disingenuous. That's hardly a fair and balanced piece she has written. More importantly, if my newspaper started behaving like the Sexual Temperance Society, I would promptly cancel my subscription.

Actually, I intended that comparison sincerely; it was not disingenuous.

> That's hardly a fair and balanced piece she has written.

Not all reporting is balanced. If it were INACCURATE, you would have a point, but presenting one side of the story is still journalism.

> if my newspaper started behaving like the Sexual Temperance Society, I would promptly cancel my subscription.

I would encourage you to unsubscribe to Adria's blog and twitter. Much like any crank with a printing press, she has absolutely no power, except that a large number of people happen to listen to her. If fewer people listen, then her ability to affect others goes down proportionately. There are many newspapers that print a highly one-sided and slanted view of the news focused heavily on scandals (The Sun, New York Post, and many others). I do not buy these, but I will defend their right to attend a conference and publish true information about things that a person said in public while there.

You yourself posted the Code of Conduct, in which it states not only that harassment is 'not appropriate' (same as sexual language), but also that "We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form" - and naming and shaming on twitter is a form of harassment.

the question is what is worse - making an inmature dick joke or uploading a picture of someone and expose and discredit him publicly to thousands of people. I think with that action she did herself and her company a disservice. maybe taking the feminism thing too serious? https://securecdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/457/3...